News

Windows iTunes “on track to launch by the end of this year”

By Dennis Lloyd ● Tuesday, July 29, 2003

At the 2003 Jupiter Plug.IN Conference & Expo, Peter Lowe, Apple’s Director of Marketing for Applications and Services addressed attendees at the keynote address, and mentioned several items in regards to iTunes.

“We fundamentally believe subscriptions are the wrong path…that’s not what consumers are doing offline…they want to buy downloads.
If digital distribution is about one thing, it is about being simple…as simple as a CD player…and it needs to be consistent….take the “but” out of it.
We believe Web is not the best interface to enjoy music…
Apple for Windows is on track to launch by the end of this year…Usage rules for Windows version of iTunes: certainly it is our intention to have the broad music rights…
Out of all our iTunes sales, 46 percent has been sold as albums..the disintegration of the album has not happened, contrary to what people are saying…”

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Other sources have repeatedly said that Apple intends to release iTunes for Windoz around Thankgiving. The marketing guys think that this will juice sales of iPods around the important Christmas season.

Posted by Obadiah on July 30, 2003 at 9:01 AM (CDT)

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Does anybody know of any way iPod can play wma files? or am I dreaming? I downloaded a number of songs buymusic.crap in wma format only to find that ipod doesn’t play this format. Any ideas?

Posted by John on July 30, 2003 at 3:51 PM (CDT)

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The iPod cannot play WMA and I doubt it ever will be able to.
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iPod and other things: http://www.sebimeyer.com

Posted by Sebi on July 30, 2003 at 3:55 PM (CDT)

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Can you recommend a legal downloading service other than buymusic.com that allows you to download in mp3 as oppose to wma and still allow you to transfer to a portable device???

Posted by John on July 30, 2003 at 4:01 PM (CDT)

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BuyMusic’s asshat mish mash of DRM policies will not let it run on most portable devices, iPod included much less create a cd for you to use in your car. Maybe they are getting paid by the RIAA to be incompetent thus driving sales back to CDs. Why anyone would want to buy stuff from them is beyond me.

BuyMusic is DOA., and not the slightest threat to iTunes/Music Store. Everyone, and I mean everyone I know with a PC is waiting for iTunes. The only concern I’ve ever heard is that Apple would opt to license store to Amazon or someone else.

Posted by gilatrout on July 30, 2003 at 8:50 PM (CDT)

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Man i just want iTunes for Windows. I love that little program. The music store itself is just ok.

Posted by skippy on July 30, 2003 at 9:52 PM (CDT)

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Thanks for the follow up. I guess it’s back to Limewire and KaZaa. Screw the RIAA. I really did try to go legite w/ BuyMusic, then Rhapsody, then Listen.com but you can’t keep the songs or transfer them to portable devices. It’s bullshit. And the RIAA can’t understand move to these file sharing sites.

Posted by John on July 30, 2003 at 11:21 PM (CDT)

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Just download something to convert wma to mp3. I converted 2 gigs of files a couple of days ago.. took a while, but they work in the ipod now. :-)
And the software was free.

Posted by jc on July 31, 2003 at 12:54 PM (CDT)

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you cant convert copy protected wmas cos of microsoft stuff

Posted by ti on July 31, 2003 at 3:23 PM (CDT)

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Ah, never tried copy protected ones I guess, just the ones I’d made of my own CDs.
but: